


From a Safe Distance

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [38]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Chores, Comfort, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Loki (Marvel) Does What He Wants, Lullabies, Stark Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23976262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: When you first move into the Tower, Loki is skeptical. He lurks a little more than is seemly. But then things change one night.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 7
Kudos: 261





	From a Safe Distance

When Stark moved you in to the floor that Loki shared with Thor, he was skeptical. Some base, territorial part of him wanted to puff up and snarl at the intruder, at you. He didn’t say anything out loud, partly because he was not some animalistic creature but also because he didn’t care to give Stark the chance to remind him that he was only here because of Thor’s goodwill. 

Thor, of course, was unruffled. He’d gone down to greet you and had bundled you out of the elevator carrying all of your suitcases while you followed behind him looking uncomfortable. You’d caught Loki lurking in a hallway, watching the scene with narrowed eyes, and had offered him a shy smile, almost apologetic, before hurrying to catch up with your bags. Something about that smile stuck with him.

It was almost nice, no longer being the newest resident of the Tower, but watching how the others treated you—almost universally warm and welcoming—irritated him. Granted, he understood that his own origin story was much less sympathetic than “one of Stark’s employees needed a place to stay when her parents kicked her out of their place during a global pandemic”, and it was reasonably safe to assume that you had never tried to subjugate the planet, but no one ever seemed to remember that it hadn’t been _entirely_ his fault. 

So he tried to keep his distance from you. Already, Thor had declared himself your designated host and took to dragging you around the Tower and sitting himself beside you at meals and making sure you were comfortable here. Loki told himself that he was not at all jealous, either of Thor’s monopoly on your attention or your monopoly on his. 

But there was something about you that made you aggravatingly hard to ignore. He found himself lurking more than he was really comfortable with: lingering in doorways when he started to enter a room and saw that you were already inside. He’d watch you, sometimes interacting with other members of the team but more often doing something on your own. You were quiet. You didn’t speak much, so, when you did, people listened. Something about the way that you sat, that you moved, made you seem incredibly wise—wiser, at least, than most of the other mortals Loki had seen—and graceful. Whether you were reading a book or scrolling through your phone, Loki always got the sense that you were doing something important. He often caught himself longing to speak up from the doorway to ask what you were doing, but when that happened, he let himself slink away instead.

When Tony dismissed the cleaning staff for the Tower, he assured them that they would continue to receive their paychecks and then had set up a large Chore Chart on the wall in the kitchen. There were enough of you, he’d explained, that you could each take care of one of the larger jobs each week, so the staff could stay home with their families and not have to risk bringing the virus into the Tower. After all, “We can’t all rely on super serum or godly immune systems to keep ourselves safe.”

It chafed Loki’s pride a bit, to be asked to do these Midgardian chores, especially when he discovered that Stark programmed a suit to complete his job each week, but he didn’t say a word. Everyone else more or less took up their own jobs without complaining, and Loki still didn’t care to give anyone any more reason to want him out of the Tower.

One week, it was your job to take care of the kitchen. He found himself lingering nearby much more often than before, often dipping in to make a cup of tea or find a snack, when normally he would have done without. Over time, your smile had become a little less apologetic, but you kept that sweet shyness about you. It made him want to protect you. That realization struck him like a boulder one night, made him retreat to his room early instead of watching you clean the kitchen, but as long as he kept it to himself, no one would know.

If he was smart, he would have started avoiding you. He didn’t want to make any connections here in Midgard, especially not with a _mortal_ , but it was hard to stop himself. At night, he often laid awake far too late into the night, straining his ears to listen for your quiet movements in your room. You had trouble sleeping, he soon learned. Sometimes you left your room in favor of the sitting room on this floor, and he would hear the sound of turning pages when you tried to read yourself to sleep. Sometimes he only heard the rustling of your sheets as you tossed and turned in bed, and he imagined your lovely face illuminated by the glow of your phone’s screen. 

Tonight, though, he heard you head for the staircase. He waited a few moments, to give you enough of a head start that you wouldn’t hear him behind you, and then got up to follow you. You’d gone down to the kitchen. A midnight snack, perhaps? He hovered in the darkness of the hallway and listened for signs of what you were doing. He heard the clinking of dishes—a lot of dishes, more than if you were simply getting yourself a snack. He stepped closer, to see what, exactly you were doing, and watched as you unloaded the great dish-washing machine, quietly and carefully stacking dishes and putting them back into the cupboards. He’d seen this a million times. Hell, he’d even had to do it many times during his week on kitchen duty. But he felt his heart thud in his chest as he watched you do it. 

You moved with your usual grace, illuminated by the gentle glow of the nightlights under the cupboards rather than by the glare of the overhead light. It was such a simple ritual, straightforward, but, watching it, Loki let himself imagine that this was his home, that those were his dishes, that _you_ were his partner. The notion startled him, but he didn’t look away from you. 

When you were finished putting the dishes away, you opened the mug cupboard and stretched up onto your tiptoes, thinking. He imagined being able to sidle up behind you and wrap you in his arms, bury his face against your neck. You hadn’t said much more to him in your time here than you’d said to anyone else, but each time you caught him rolling his eyes at Thor’s enthusiasm, there always seemed to be a spark of knowing laughter in your face. Eventually, you chose a mug from the cabinet and placed it on the counter before going to turn on the kettle. But then you went back to the cabinet, reaching up again to shuffle the mugs around as though looking for something else. 

A quick rush of possessiveness rushed through him when he watched your fingers close around his mug. What did you need that one for? Yours sat waiting on the counter, and surely you didn’t need two. And even if you _did_ need two, why did you need _that_ mug? He narrowed his eyes at you in the darkness.

“Will you join me for tea?” You spoke softly, and without turning around, but, as attuned as he was to the sounds you made, he heard you perfectly. He drew a little further back into the hallway but kept his eyes open, watching for whoever you were talking to. But no one answered you. You waited another few moments before turning to face the doorway. And him. “Or I can make hot chocolate, if you prefer?”

Him. You were looking at him. 

Feeling a little sheepish but desperately unwilling to let you know that, he swallowed hard and stepped into the dim light of the kitchen. “I’ll have tea, thanks.” He hated how cold he sounded, how imperious. You were not a servant to be ordered around. But you just regarded him with a sunny smile and rummaged through the tea drawer. He drew closer to watch, and froze when he saw you draw out some of his preferred tea.

“Is this okay?” you asked, like you had no idea what you’d done. He nodded dumbly. You set about the familiar ritual of tea: preparing the strainers, dropping them carefully into the empty mugs. Then you started towards the cabinet that held the honey—you always seemed to take your tea absurdly sweet—but he got there first, easily taking the jar off of the high shelf. You seemed surprised, but smiled at him as you took the jar from him. He wanted to let his touch linger. He wanted to feel you. But it was all he could do not to pull his hand away like he’d been burned.

He watched you measure out your own spoonfuls of honey and went to reach for the spoon to take his own, more-appropriate amount, but you did it yourself, scooping out just the perfect amount and dropping it into his mug. When you finally poured the boiling water into the mugs and turned to hand him his, he accepted it with a slight nod of his head. “Observant, aren’t you?” He tried to keep his voice light, even amused, but had to bite back a smile when you ducked your head to hide your face. Perhaps you hadn’t realized the implications of what you’d just done.

“For as much as you watch me from doorways, I’m not allowed to watch you?” You focused your attention on stirring your honey into your tea, which was probably for the best. Loki did not make a habit of letting mortals get to him, but maybe heat rose into his cheeks when he realized that you’d known he was watching all along. Several excuses—lies, mostly—sprang to mind, but he swallowed them down with a sip of tea. It wasn’t nearly finished steeping yet, but it let him hide his face for a moment.

“It would appear that I’ve underestimated you.” Maybe it was an explanation; maybe it was an apology. He stole a glance at you, and saw that you were smiling faintly, privately. 

“A lot of people do.” And then you let the matter drop. Each of you knew now that the other one paid a perhaps-inappropriate amount of attention to the other, and that was that. For the first time, Loki let himself slip into a comfortable conversation with a mortal, with _you_ , and by the time your mugs grew empty and cold on the table before you, you were making each other laugh in the darkness. Your laughter warmed him more than the tea had, and it was impossible to miss the surprised, but satisfied smile that curled your lips each time you made him laugh. It was even easier, now, to slip into that world where all of this was his. Where you were his. He took a moment to hope, fervently, that you would not see the desire in his eyes.

And then he found himself hoping that you could.


End file.
